Perchance to Dean
"Perchance to Dean" is the 42nd episode of The Venture Bros.. Plot Hank has been grounded for being rude to his father in front of guests. Meanwhile, Dean appears to have become the golden child of the Venture family. Rusty rewards Dean for as yet unknown reasons with his own lab (based in the Venture compound's panic room), a chemistry set, and an introduction to his muse, which turns out to be Progressive Rock. But all is not well in the house of Venture. A deformed clone slug apparently survived an abortion attempt during Brock's first days at the Compound, and has been living in the attic ever since, growing more and more resentful of the blessed existence of Hank and Dean. He is attempting to gain the affection of Dr. Venture, or at least of an apparition of him, by constructing a suit out of the skins of the various iterations of Dean that have died over the years. The slug needs just one more piece to complete his suit. Cultural References *In the scene where Dr. Venture shows Brock the clone lab, their clothes and hair styles indicate that the action is taking place at some point in the late 1980s or early 1990s. *The suit made of Dean skins is a reference to The Silence of the Lambs, in which the villain makes a suit out of the skins of the women he rapes and murders. *When Dean first begins listening to prog rock, his hallucinations begin with a reference to Leonardo Da Vinci's Study of Man, and then transition to a sequence similar to the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. *Dr. Venture reveals Dean was named in honor of renown album cover artist Roger Dean, whom Rusty cites as the, "greatest artist of of our Generation." *Dr. Venture warns Dean not to air drum along to the Yes album he is listening to; lest his wrists snap trying to keep up with the constant rhythmic shifts of drummer Bill Bruford. Dean is seen later to grab his wrists in pain when attempting to air drum. *While arguing with his father in the bathroom, as the shot pans through the ventilation pipe, Hank can be heard shouting, "Attica! Attica!" This is a reference to Dog Day Afternoon, in which the character played by Al Pacino uses the same cry against police brutality (the chant itself references the Attica prison riot.) *The album Dr. Ventures warns Dean about is King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King. *When Dean overdoses on prog rock, Dr. Venture finds him listening to the second side of Dark Side of the Moon. *Hank mentions Bill Nye the Science Guy when insisting on his scientific ineptitude. *When the police further investigate the Venture compound, the sheriff's presumptions lead him to think whatever may be happening inside will be a repeat of the Waco siege of 1993. *When Sgt. Hatred's hard drive is seized by the police, he alleges that any seemingly inappropriate material on the computer is "purely computer generated." This is probably a reference to the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, in which the Court held that a federal law criminalizing the creation and possession of virtual child pornography was unconstitutionally overbroad. The idea of a disfigured, failed clone observing Dean from a distance resembles the "Clone Saga" of the Spider-man universe, where Kaine, the first Spider-clone created by the Jackal, watches his counterparts from afar. Dean resembles Peter Parker, and is often seen wearing Spider-man themed pajamas in the episode.